Internal medicine journal
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2012
Identifying patient-specific beliefs and behaviours for conversations about adherence in asthma.
Asthma guidelines advise addressing adherence at every visit, but no simple tools exist to assist clinicians in identifying key adherence-related beliefs or behaviours for individual patients. ⋯ This study identified several specific beliefs and behaviours which clinicians could use for initiating patient-centred conversations about medication adherence in asthma.
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2012
Evaluation of iron deficiency anaemia in tertiary hospital settings: room for improvement?
Iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) is a marker of occult blood loss from gastrointestinal (GI) lesions and requires thorough GI evaluation. ⋯ Almost one in two patients with IDA were not documented as undergoing GI endoscopy. More intense guideline promulgation, improved endoscopy access and ongoing practice audits are required to improve endoscopy rates.
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2012
A variant in microRNA-196a2 is not associated with susceptibility to and progression of colorectal cancer in Chinese.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs with regulatory functions as tumour suppressors and oncogenes. Although single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in miRNA regions have been reported to be rare and unlikely to be functionally important, recent evidence suggested that rs11614913 SNP in miR-196a2 was associated with the susceptibility of lung cancer, breast cancer, congenital heart disease and shortened survival time of non-small-cell lung cancer. ⋯ Our results suggest that miR-196a2 polymorphism is not associated with both an increased risk and progression of CRC in Chinese.
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2012
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyComparison of empirical continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment versus initial portable sleep monitoring followed by CPAP treatment for patients with suspected obstructive sleep apnoea.
Polysomnography is labour-intensive for diagnosing obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). We compared two algorithms for initiating continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment for patients with suspected OSA. ⋯ An ambulatory approach with portable sleep monitoring for diagnosing OSA before a CPAP trial can identify more patients who would adhere to CPAP at 6 months than empirical CPAP treatment alone.